Mayur Jobanputra
Idea Portfolio

I’m always thinking about startups. On this page I have listed many of the ideas I have come up over the past 20 or so years. Most of these never become anything more than idea. Some take an initial shape (often a doc and domain), and a few event go to market or are being worked on now.
What do I after I see a problem worth solving?
Here is my process (post the initial idea):
- Check for domain names – this is my first step to see if someone has thought of this
- Research to see if someone else is building this already
- If they are, visit their site and “glean” what they discovered and (perhaps) what they missed
- If nobody seems to be, explore the idea further to see if a community exists and if someone mentions the same problem
- Explore the business and startup canvases
- Consider from a PM lens, “What could the MVP look like?”
- Think about partners and influencers that could participate
- Think about the Wizard of Oz version of the startup
At this point, if I get a good feeling and think it’s worth pursuing, I start the heavy lifting like looking for potential teammates and co-founders, developing a mission/vision (something new that I’m working more on), and most important of all: finding and talking to customers to gauge interest.
In the past, (prior to becoming a product manager), I would have jumped head first into building. The act of building would let me dive a little deeper into user pains and values. Nowadays, I put more effort into problem discovery and team building.
Enjoy the list 🙂
Makeuptalent.com
I first registered the domain after having prior experience working with a client, Julie Brown, a makeup artist
I placed the project on hold due to personal circumstances
I restarted the project as I still didn't see any competitors entering this area of business
GoodMingl.com
Shuttlr
I got this idea from watching Liam Bolling talk about resumes at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Bbl8QBd6I. He gave some good tips about what questions to ask yourself when thinking about resume bullets. I wanted to drop those notes down into a Google doc that I'm keeping (I should probably move to notion at some point I suppose).
Commentor App
Idea inception thinking about working with Jason Calacanis at Launch as a social media manager. How would I possibly comment on all these platforms? Typing is so slow. There has to be a better way. How about a little app (windows/mac) that sees the app I use, and then posts a reply for me by transcribing my audio response. That would be amazing and a real time saver.
FounderScouts.com
Idea inception thinking about the VC and startup ecosystem. I love startups and founder. I wonder if a marketplace of this kind could exist where people are paid as a professional founder scout.
Resume Secretary
I'm tracking my job applications in a very primitive way right now. I'm using google docs and a folder. I name each resume with the title of the JD. If I get rejected, I note down "rejected" on the file name. It's primitive, but it works well enough. Sure would be nice if I could hire an assistant to do this.
Video NDA
Thinking about the painful process of developing an NDA, and then sending to someone to sign it. Why can't we do this over video?
Daily Wins
Selling pre-formatted journal blanks makes sense. For example, a box to lock/unlock your pages so that you can share privately, and an another section to enter the journal date.
Amazon Textract to the rescue
Rental Resume
An idea I thought about a few years ago when I was trying to move to another rental but the most significant barrier is lack of employment proof.
The Product Podcast
Defrost
Thinking about this as watch the webflow interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkJPxDgUGMA.
EmergeCharge
MockMe
Viral component - the more people you invite, the more mocks you get to run. You can create your own private mock groups, or find public groups that you can join. The app automatically assigns mocks with people above, at and above your skill or experience level based on a shared calculation at the end of the mock. Who was more experienced? Who was less experienced?
VideoPopsicle / WatchLaughTalk
I just finished my first video with Teresa on Exponent and thought.. hmm.. wouldn't it be great if we watched a video together and could share/comment?
How to create virality: You invite friends and the only way for them to become users and launch their own popsicle is that you have to first do a video with them and then earn a certain score. The score is calculated on the number of pauses, re-starts, sounds recorded during (laugh, cry, talk, etc) etc.
Users that get more popsicles can invite more users to the platform. The users can also sell invites if they like and earn a cut too.
Startup Games
I have been running this ideas board for a few weeks now. It's great, but I would love to collaborate on ideas with others. Maybe have live group meetings to work on specific artifacts like a canvas or something.
How to Build a Startup course
Something like...
> Ideation - from personal experience
> Mission/Vision
> Product design
> Estimation
> Potential users and pain points
> Prioritization focused on PMF
> Building a team
> Roadmapping and tactical work
> Measuring and Iterating
Each of these steps are eventually in the wheelhouse of a good PM and I think 90% of aspiring PMs don't have the skills or understanding of how to do this. This could easily be a course + live 1:1 or live group consults.
Expected outcome: Aspiring PM goes through each of each of these stages, they learn PM work in real-life and then showcase that on their social/resume
Crowd Collect
Could a business exist to connect crowds with data needs?